Document based on MAC template

[Guest]

Dear All

Have recently re-kitted out a customer who now has both a
PC running XP Pro sp1 Office 2003 Pro AND an Mac OS 10
Office for Mac 10.1.5 (most up to date version apparently

When a document that is based on a Mac Office Template is
exported to the XP/Office 2003 Pro machine then an
information box appears that the underlying template that
the document was based could not be open BUT then it opens
the document without error---this error only appears on
Office 2003 and not the previous PC with Windows 2000 Pro
and Office 2000 Pro.

Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted

Thank

gordo

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Cross-posting to the Mac word group for extra input.

Are you actually having a problem making stuff work or is it just the
annoyance of the error message?

DM

 

[Guest]

Also I have instructed user to amend Templates and add-ins ,after unprotecting the document, to say template is based on Normal.dot and not the template on the MAC and that seemed to work o

Also as workaround he can save as Word 97/2000 document and that did not bring the error message eithe

Both of these workaround are extra work however

:

gordon

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

More info, read bottom to top, sorry:

Hi Gordon,

I'm trying to keep this thread so that it goes to two groups, as more Mac
people are on the other group, so be sure to reply on this thread, and make
sure it is addressed to both these groups:
microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
microsoft.public.mac.office.word
I copied in your previous posts to this message, as those did *not* get to
both groups, for whatever reason.

From what I know about templates, that process is what always happens--when
you send a doc around, Word looks for the template the doc is based on and
if it can't find it, it just opens the doc. So it's weird that the message
appears, but the appearance of the message does not mean anything is going
wrong.

Have you searched all the Tools | Options on the PC to see if a preference
setting controls the appearance of this message? (conceivably it is part of
increased security in Office 2003 Pro)

Have you tested whether the message appears with a doc based on a template
that was created on a different PC? Is this behavior produced by documents
from any foreign computer or only macs?

Dayo

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Replying to my post should have kept it posted to both groups (are you
having a problem replying to my posts?). But anyhow.

I opened it fine, but I'm on a Mac on OS 9, so none of the same conditions
apply. Don't have access to Word 2003, so I've really just been
brainstorming here.

Behavior only occurs on Macs that have documents based on templates not
avaiable to PC

You specifically tested a doc created on a different PC, right?
I would also say see if you can test documents created on Macs other than
the problematic one.
Also does this happen with documents from *all* templates created on that
Mac or just the one?
You said something about protecting the doc--does it happen with both
protected and unprotected documents?

You could try moving the template to the PC, opening it, maybe making a fake
change and saving it, then moving it back to the Mac. I forget what vague
recollection makes me think that might have an effect, though I think it
would only help with documents created after that, if at all.

Running out of ideas, I'm afraid. Maybe someone else will chime in.

Dayo

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Dayo:

Sorry, I did not chime in because you are right

This is normal operation. There is a new feature in Word 2003: it will warn
you if the document is attached to a template that cannot be accessed.

Previous versions of Word did not issue the warning.

The result is the same: the document opens normally and the template is
unavailable.

The majority of corporate documents around the world are in this condition
permanently because only an infinitesimal percentage of Word users
understand templates.

It has no effect: a document never needs to refer to a template again once
it has been created. Never. There are some extra things you can do with a
document if it *does* remain attached to its template, but very few (0 > n <
1%) of Word users know about them. E.g. Macros in the template will no
longer be available.

Cheers


This responds to article

Replying to my post should have kept it posted to both groups (are you
having a problem replying to my posts?). But anyhow.

I opened it fine, but I'm on a Mac on OS 9, so none of the same conditions
apply. Don't have access to Word 2003, so I've really just been
brainstorming here.

You specifically tested a doc created on a different PC, right?
I would also say see if you can test documents created on Macs other than
the problematic one.
Also does this happen with documents from *all* templates created on that
Mac or just the one?
You said something about protecting the doc--does it happen with both
protected and unprotected documents?

You could try moving the template to the PC, opening it, maybe making a fake
change and saving it, then moving it back to the Mac. I forget what vague
recollection makes me think that might have an effect, though I think it
would only help with documents created after that, if at all.

Running out of ideas, I'm afraid. Maybe someone else will chime in.

Dayo

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]